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But the film. Somewhere in the middle of the strike, Van Arsdale said to me, “This is a strike that we should make a film about.” He said, “You ought to make a film.”

I said, “Yes.” We were over our ears in other things. We were going without sleep and without anything, but we were hyped up on it, it was a shot in the arm, and we could go forever on this thing. Every time he saw me, he would say, “Don't forget about the film.”

I said, “Get right to it.”

Then he'd say, “How is the film coming?”

I'd say, “The film is coming fine.”

One day he said to me, “Do you think it will be ready in October? Because we're going to have a big meeting of the Central Labor Council. I'd like to show it there.”

At that point, I said, “This man really is serious.” So I called Faith Hubley. John and Faith Hubley were winners of the Academy Award for animated films. He's the originator of Mr. Magoo. He's dead now. But I had known them before on films and as friends. I said, “Faith, I've got this terrible problem. I don't know what to do.”

She said, “Okay, look in your book. Are you going to be free? Make a note, at 5:00 o'clock on this weekday, I'm going to have a cocktail party at our apartment on Fifth Avenue, and I want you to come to speak. I'm going to invite filmmakers. You come and you be prepared to talk about the strike.”

So I went, and there must have been a hundred or more filmmakers, friends of hers who are important filmmakers. I made the pitch about the strike. On the spot they raised something like $1,500 for the strikers. Then Faith said, “We have another problem. We have to make a film. Moe has got to have a film made by October on the strike, a documentary. John and I would do it, but we have a commitment on a contract that we must fulfill. Are there any people here who would volunteer to make the film?” And two hands went up. One was John Schultz and the other Pat Jaffe. John at that time was an editor at CBS television. He had been the editor for Edward R. Murrow on “Harvest of Shame.” Pat Jaffe was also a very skilled filmmaker. They volunteered. Within a month they made a film. We got a lot of television footage stolen for us by a guy who is now at WMCA, an Irish brogue, who was then the reporter for Channel 11.





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